Maryland home prices: 8th biggest drop in nation
Maryland home sale prices in the first three months of the year dropped 4.8 percent from a year earlier, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said today. That's the eighth largest decline in the country.
Here's the bottom 10:
1. California, down 19 percent
2. Nevada, down 17 percent
3. Florida, down 15 percent
4. Arizona, down 11 percent
5. Michigan, down 8.9 percent
6. New Hampshire, down 5.1 percent
7. Minnesota, down 5 percent
8. Maryland, down 4.8 percent
9. Ohio, down 3.9 percent
10. Virginia, down 3.7 percent
You can see OFHEO's news release HERE and its data HERE. OFHEO says home sales prices are down 3.1 percent nationally, the largest drop on record. (In its press release, it has a ranking of the states that includes not just sales but also refinance mortgages, so it's a bit apples-to-oranges to the national figure. That's why I crunched the data to come up with a purchase-only ranking.)
Sign up for the At Home newsletter 
Comments
After increases of over 100%, this is a start in the right direction. The only people who will be hurt by these declines are those who were foolish to overpay for a house. The solution is simple: stay there. If you're losing value, it only hits if you sell. Obviously, those who sell after a year or two are speculators, not home owners. For them, I have only contempt, not sympathy.
Posted by: Anon | May 22, 2008 11:55 AM
I wish the Case-Shiller Index covered Baltimore....it would show a much larger decline than the OFHEO index.
Posted by: Kevin | May 22, 2008 12:56 PM
I agree, the things ARE so simple. I don't care for cluck-clucking from speculators either!
Posted by: Anon2 | May 22, 2008 1:48 PM
The 5% to date is entirely appropriate.
An additional 5% over the next year is well within reason.
If the numbers were a wholesale slashing to eliminate the price creep of the previous five years... that too would be understandable if much more worrisome.
On the whole, were doing ok.
Unless you are a buyer without a good income of course.
(But that is a whole other issue)
Posted by: MrRational | May 22, 2008 2:25 PM
Baltimore is doing well indeed - the prices didn't fall too much - but nobody is buying.
Posted by: MrUltraRational | May 22, 2008 7:52 PM
5% is not that bad. At least we're not California. 19% -- WOW!!
Posted by: Ryan Sears | May 22, 2008 7:55 PM
People who buy a home and sell within a year or two of purchase aren't necessarily speculators, and it's not fair to label it all as such. There is quite a bit of people who purchase and then find themselves at a point in their life where their job changes or they're forced to relo for some reason or another.
Mr.Rational- It's not the good income that's nearly as important as the outstanding credit score and low DTI!
Posted by: Jonathan Benya | May 27, 2008 7:39 AM